Anyone who has followed Ari Berman's coverage of the War on Voting would feel troubled about the Supreme Court's VRA decision. Devon Carbado, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Cheryl Harris argue that the opinion (among many others) poisons the well of other civil rights victories at the Court:

Windsor and Perry are now not only part of our constitutional infrastructure; they are part of the American story of civil rights reform. In this respect, we have come a long way. That we have travelled this distance should be cause for celebration. And, yet, we cannot.

We can’t celebrate because despite the affirmation of one set of rights, another—the civil rights of African Americans—is being relentlessly undermined. Continuing a decade-long trend of attacking and eroding legal remedies for racial inequality, the Supreme Court effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act –the most powerful and productive civil rights provision secured through the Civil Rights Movement’s bloodiest struggles against racial domination.